Getting independent from Russia in 1917 brought Ukraine to
almost cheos, No less then four local air corps were formed, and
if you add foriegn corps that joined the "celebration",
it is quite understood that no one found the time to put thing in
order concering marking. [cos98]
report various of marking but I suspect that each report is made
upon a single photo and there were much more variations.
There was "Povitrovvi Fl'ot" (Ukrainian People's
Republic Air Fleet) and there was the Aviation Regiment of
the Ukrainian Galician Army of the Western Ukrainian
Peoples Republic and there was the Army of the Don Republic
and there was the Red Ukrainian Air Fleet.
[cos98] report that the Povitrovvi
Fl'ot used: white disc with yellow blue rings, yellow outlined
trident, yellow (fully colored) trident, chequred 2X2 blue yellow
sqare, blue trident on yellow sqare bordered blue. Ukrainian
Galician Army reported to have a yellow-blue roundel and yellow
skull and bones on white disc bordered blue. Don Republic used
blue triangle on white disc. Red Ukrainian Air Fleet used the Red
Army marking. Website (<gr.fipu.krasnoyarsk.edu>)
show a yellow-blue roundel and national flag as fin flash.
In 1991 Ukraine Air Force (<www.mil.gov.ua>)
adopted new markings consist of blue yellow roundel (<www.airliners.net/210034>)
and yellow trident on red shild as fin flash (<www.airliners.net/452812>).
Those markings are used until today.
However, incorrectly [cos98] show
those markings as 1991-1992 and report that 1992-onward marking
are yellow shild on blue disc, both as roundel and fin flash. I
thing that the base for this mistake is that in 1992, the Ukraine
air force sent a MiG-29C for series of displayes and air-shows in
USA and Canada. As needed by this occasion, the plane was
re-paint in blue-yellow finish and trident-on-shild-on-disc
markings (<www.airliners.net/311644>).
As far as sources show, this was the only plane that had such
markings. As expected, the media was overwhelmed by the sight of
the former enemy best fighter come to a such visit, and spread
his photos everywhere (I found 12 website show photos of this
plane). This was probably enough to come to conclusion that those
are the new Ukrainian marking. However, there were 6 years
between this visit and [cos98] in
which other photos were pubished, including another well painted
MiG-29UB that visit the UK in 1996 with proper marking (<www.airliners.net/301495>)
so this could be fixed....Dov Gutterman, 27 June 2004